Appeal No. 98-1858
Application 08/678,196
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's
final rejection of claims 1 through 20, all the claims pending
in the application.
Appellant’s invention is directed to a method of
treating valve dysfunction in a human patient by using a
marine mammal trileaflet valve (e.g., a marine mammal ventric-
ular outflow valve) as a replacement for the human patient’s
dys- functional valve, more specifically, a patient’s dysfunc-
tional aortic, mitral, tricuspid, or pulmonary valve. In
addition, the invention is directed to a “fixed, marine mammal
ventricular outflow valve” (claim 18). Claims 1, 11 and 18
are illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and a copy of
those claims may be found in Appendix A of appellant’s brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by
the examiner as evidence of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103
are:
Cumming et al. (Cumming) 4,793,344 Dec. 27, 1988
Ross 5,352,240 Oct. 4, 1994
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